Elton John, the knighted (and EGOT earning!) rock legend who has been one our most prominent, prolific, and powerful LGBTQ+ icons for decades.In fact, John is such an integral part of our culture, it’s easy to forget that he wasn’t always “out.” John made a name for himself with a larger-than-life, flamboyant stage presence, and rocketed to fame at a time when some of the biggest stars in music (his contemporaries include David Bowie and Queen) were pushing up against traditional gender norms—at least aesthetically.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.However, it wasn’t until a 1976 interview with Rolling Stone that John called himself bisexual, and later in the ’90s when he began more publicly identifying as gay.But, roughly a decade into his career, John released his first song performed form the perspective of a gay man—one fittingly titled “Elton’s Song”—which he now considers his first “recorded as a homosexual song.” (Though, notably, John’s first song about a queer character was actually the tragic lesbian tale “All The Girls Love Alice” from 1973.)Initially recorded in 1979 and released as part of John’s 1981 album The Fox, “Elton’s Song” was co-written by Tom Robinson, the out queer musician and activist known for the 1978 hit “Glad To Be Gay.” It tells the story of a young person’s unrequited love for a classmate, observing them around school all while daydreaming about their “grace and style” and “razor blade smile.”Though it begins as a sweet ode to an innocent crush, the number gradually reveals the deep loneliness of its narrator, ending on a final line both romantic and dark: “But I would give my life / For a single night beside you.”Notably, the lyrics keep things just vague enough so as to not explicitly mention the gender or sexuality of either character, but it’s not difficult to read between the lines here and see that this infatuation, this story, is inextricably
